X12: Skarda's Mirror
X12: Skarda's Mirror is Aaron Allston's trope-subversion, in this case the mischief you can get up to with a Bag of Holding. Here, it's a Mirror of Life Trapping, but you know - same thing.
As the X- tag implies, Allston intended this for Frank Mentzer's Expert Set, levels 5-8.
 This article contains spoilers! You have been warned. |
Backstory (there's a lot of it)
An Immortal of the Sphere of Thought cooked up a pocket-dimension, hollowed out of a particularly reflective part of Elemental Earth (so we surmise, because the mirror-plane can be quarried). He built up seven portals to get at it, in the form of mirrors. We're unsure on details, except that His pronoun was "He" and that His last thoughts were of world-conquering "mortal dictators". As time went by, six of the mirrors went the way of most Tollers' palantirs. The seventh mirror, somehow, either wasn't lost or else it was re-found. It was believed to be a Life Trapper until "twenty years ago", when some wandering magic-user named Mallek stumbled in there himself.
Mallek got hit with the vestige of this Immortal's last thoughts and rebuilt his psyche upon them: he would henceforth be SKARDA, the REAVER. Unfortunately for everyone else, this megalomaniac subsequently also discovered a way out. He's spent the decades kidnapping slaves from Mystara, doing hydroponics for food in situ, and quarrying the ambient mirrorey rock. Skarda to start his conquests in this world has recently figured upon the Duchy of Karameikos.
Two years ago, the fighter Retameron and the mage Halia, from the hamlet Verge not far south of ole fabled Threshold, scotched Mallek-Skarda's cunning plan and covered up the Mirror. But recently those two heroes fucked up and uncovered it again, allowing Skarda to send forth Mirror Fiends to grabble them into the mirror-world.
Skarda is somewhat desperate at this point because all that quarrying and other messing-about has upset the demiplane's balance. We're unsure if the mirror-world hosts a direct link to Elemental Water but, the dihydrogen-monoxide does come in, one way or another, and it ain't draining out. Or at least Skarda hasn't hit on such a method yet.
The Adventure
Teranon and Andrya deliver the above expo to the party, begging them to come to Retameron's tower at the Verge. It is now abandoned except for monsters who've entered from outside or else escaped from Halia's lab. No Mirror in here; in Skardiat Russia, you are in Mirror! ... and so it happens that this asshole finds you snooping around and takes you "Through The Looking-Glass" (actual title of "Episode Two") into "Episode Three". So "Episode Two" isn't really an episode so much as a mini-gazetteer BUT ANYWAY. Skarda does own a palace in here but Allston doesn't want you in there (reasonably, because the slaves just want out and Skarda is off doing evil in Karameikos), so there's no map of that.
The mirror-world is indeed Skarda's very own magical realm with no less than 5000 slaves, which this bastard has penned up in a Slaves' Quarter aka Hell. Episode Three is about escaping the dungeon; Episode Four is about freeing the slaves. Allston here allows much leeway to the party on how they might be able to do either. The slaves want to get out through the portals.
And they better git-'er-dun soon because, the balance is broken here, causing earthquake and flood.
The last Episode concerns Skarda's hit on the Duke, currently at a hunting-lodge. Which is now being overrun with thousands of newly-freed-men and various soldiers following various banners. When Skarda is confronted, and killed - his Mirror breaks, releasing everything except mirror-stuff and water onto the Duke's lodge. Which should include Skarda's treasure from the Palace, which is 15000 gp plus twelve works of art. Including portraits of women. Oh we didn't know you had it in you, you dog.
Legacy
This module, apart from being awesome in of itself, might well be one of the most-influential modules you haven't heard of. Its theme of a "bag of heavy capacity" that is actually a habitable demiplane becomes a Big Deal in Knights Of The Dinner Table.